Moonlight
by Alley Cat Sunflower
Summary: Set a year after Tales of Xillia 2. Alvin introduces Leia to the wonders of porange wine without thinking of the possible consequences, and wind up in a situation both of them want… but neither of them really know how to deal with. T for suggestive themes; risqué, but not explicit. I do not own Tales of Xillia or the cover art!


**((Warning: I have no real knowledge of Tales of Xillia 2. Because of this, some information may be inaccurate.))**

Leia stumbles through the door into the single inn room Xian Du can offer them, resenting Alvin's hand steadying her. She hasn't even started on that bottle of porange wine he bought to share with her, and she's already making a fool of herself.

Her clumsiness is definitely forgivable, she tells herself, attempting to ignore his hand on her shoulder. She's not exactly fully energized. It's unseasonably warm even for the middle of summer; even though it's almost midnight, Leia is sweltering in her admittedly minimal clothes, and throws open the door to the modest balcony before Alvin even turns on the lights.

He's too hot, too. As Leia kicks off her shoes, sits on the bed, and pulls off her stockings, Alvin tosses his jacket onto one of the beds and removes his shoes after a slight hesitation. It might not be professional, ill befitting his status as businessman, but he likes to think he doesn't _have_ to keep up appearances around Leia.

By the time she's flung her cap across the room, removed her outermost layer, rolled up her sleeves, and plunked herself down at the tiny table with a sigh, Alvin has already poured them two glasses of Moonlight and started on his own. She looks at the shimmering pale liquid with wide eyes, but he can't see the fear hidden deep within them.

Leia hasn't ever drunk anything like this before, and she has misgivings about Alvin being the first to see her tipsy. Of course she trusts him, she tells herself warily. She _has_ to trust him. They've helped save the world together twice now, and he hasn't done anything suspicious.

He's just trying to help the only way he knows how.

"Go on," he encourages, sitting at the table, and meets her eyes with as much of a smile as he can muster. "Alcohol is as good a counselor as any." As though to emphasize his words, Alvin takes another sip of his drink, and Leia cautiously tries it as well.

It's mellow and sweet, and Leia blinks in surprise. She doesn't know what she expected, but it wasn't this. She always thought of alcohol as dangerous, capable of rendering even the most peaceable people aggressive. But this… it certainly doesn't _taste _dangerous. After another sip, she glances up to see Alvin smiling at her with unsettling sincerity.

He looks away as soon as she tries to meet his eyes, his smile cracking before shattering completely. How could he possibly think this is helping? She's only seventeen. She's _seventeen_, and he's twenty-eight, and here they sit, drinking over their uniquely broken hearts.

Of course, Leia thinks it's only _her_ heart for which they're drinking. He's all right with that. Really, he is. It's not like anyone has actually broken his heart anyway. He just forces himself to think she has.

There is a long silence, during which Alvin frowns as Leia finishes her first glass and pours herself another. She clearly doesn't know how to pace herself; Alvin almost warns her, but decides experience is a better teacher. She probably won't listen to him anyway.

Leia wonders why Alvin is looking at her like that, and resolves to fracture the disquieting quiet. "I don't know why I'm so sad," she says, staring into her refilled cup. "Jude is happy now, with Milla. I _knew_ I wouldn't be the one to make him happy like that." She stares at the ceiling, lost in thought, trying to find a reason. "It shouldn't hurt like this."

"Knowing things doesn't make them hurt less," responds Alvin as gently as possible, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes. He should know, after all. "If I know someone's going to die, it doesn't make it less painful when they're gone."

There is a pause, during which Alvin finishes his first glass.

"You don't get it," says Leia abruptly. It's suddenly very important that he understand, and she glares at him as fiercely as she dares. "I'm _not_ hurt that he's with her." The thought crosses her mind that maybe she's convincing herself, but she ignores it. "I'm… guilty, I guess. I moved on. I feel like… I should have been more loyal, even if he was never going to like me back."

Alvin wonders if she knows how close to home that sentiment hits.

"You moved on," he repeats, and pours himself another glass.

"Yeah," says Leia, all ferocity vanished, and stares at the floor absentmindedly. "I moved on." How is she supposed to tell him what's going on in her mind if she doesn't even know herself? Or at least, that's what she forces herself to think. Leia knows the reason all too well. She just doesn't _want_ to know.

Alvin sighs and swirls his drink around, stalling for a moment, before he says, "Presa," and the grief in his voice at just the mention of her is enough to make Leia frown and take another sip. She doesn't want to hear about the woman she knows he loved, even if he's never admitted it, but she doesn't have the heart to stop him. "She died, and for the longest time I couldn't stop thinking about her. But then I—"

He's glad, in a way, when Leia leans over and puts a clumsy finger on his lips and halts him mid-sentence. He doesn't want to talk about how he moved on too, because she's seventeen and he's twenty-eight and they're drinking together, and that's never the right answer.

"Stop blaming yourself," says Leia quietly, meeting his eyes with unusual intensity and seriousness, her Moonlit glimmer temporarily dulled. "Everyone kept telling me not to blame myself for… for Agria. It took me a long time to listen, and I'm… still not sure I believe them." She paused. "And now I'm telling you, _don't do that_. It's been two years."

Alvin tries to say he won't—another lie, one of the several he's most accustomed to telling—but Leia presses her hand against his mouth, suppressing a sudden smile with difficulty. The corners of Alvin's mouth turn up automatically at her expression, and he raises his glass to his covered lips, tapping it against her hand impatiently.

She wiggles a couple fingers against his goatee, frowning, but does not move her hand. "Your beard is weird," she decides, then smiles at the unintentional rhyme, fingers weakening. Alvin, sensing her shift in focus, gently moves her hand away.

"Well, _I _think it makes me look dashing," he counters, sipping at his Moonlight. His lighthearted tone masks a tiny twinge of worry, however trivial. He's always prided himself on appearance, perhaps too much so, as a result of his upbringing in a rich family. Does Leia really dislike the way he looks?

"I'd know that better than you," teases Leia, scooting her chair closer and taking another drink of Moonlight. She doesn't really care, if she's being honest; a beard, or the lack thereof, doesn't change who he is. "I miss your old outfit," she adds, leaning forward and playing with the edge of his yellow scarf.

Alvin sighs heavily, but there is humor in his voice as he replies. "If you miss it that much, give me my coat back."

The realization of what she's doing hits Leia abruptly, and she jerks her hands away from his scarf as though she's been burned. Is this what Moonlight does? She's sure the shining liquid has something to do with it, anyway, however vague her thoughts are.

Worse, she's not even sure she doesn't _like_ it.

What was the last thing he said? A jolt runs through Leia at the thought; she gets the feeling he's waiting for a response, and she has none to give. Something about a coat. He said something about… "Too hot for a coat," she mumbles, dropping her gaze and hoping that's the right answer.

Alvin chuckles, and might even redden a little as she loosens her own tie-like scarf and unfastens a couple buttons on her shirt. He doesn't want to think about everything she has to offer him, because she's _not _offering it to him. She _shouldn't_, anyway. Eleven years of separation aren't anything to sneeze at.

Silence. Leia finishes her second cup and her fingers linger over the bottle as though to pour herself another, but Alvin beats her to it and refills his own empty cup first with a roguish wink—though he fills her glass for her too, when he's done. As the two sip at their drinks half-awkwardly, Leia wishes she has courage enough to tell Alvin her secret—why she's fidgeting so much, why she wants so badly to trust him, why she's kind of sort of _glad_ the inn only has one room.

Courage in a bottle, thinks Leia. That's what Moonlight should be, and she's had two and a half glasses.

"It's you," she says, before she can change her mind. Alvin raises his eyebrows; he's heard that phrase before in too many contexts to value one above another, but his heart skips an unwilling beat to think of one in particular, and practically stops as she continues. "You're the one I'm trying to make happy now, and I wish to Maxwell I knew _how_."

So he's right, and for once it's not a worst-case scenario.

…Kind of.

There are too many things in the way for this to ever, ever work, and he knows it. His philosophy for the last several months has been that it's better to break his own heart with that conviction than to let the circumstances progress further than they should and shatter it completely.

But now he knows hers hangs in the balance, too. As she looks at him with those liquid green eyes, already brimming with tears in anticipation of rejection, Alvin finds that he doesn't want to run from the truth anymore.

Not for his own sake, anyway.

"You're already doing it," he assures her, swallowing his fear with a mouthful of Moonlight; she blinks, plainly astonished. "Just by being here, talking and drinking with me." He finds that he cannot hold her gaze any longer and stares at the ceiling instead, elated heartbeat singing in his throat and contradicting the doubts whirling through his head.

Leia can't keep her smile hidden any longer and gets to her feet, gazing longingly out the open door towards the breezy balcony before glancing back at Alvin. There's something off about the way he's reacting, something almost… guilty. Leia fends off the concern welling up in her heart in favor of forced skepticism, and takes his hand somewhat childishly: he starts.

"Let's go outside," she suggests, disjointedly, and Alvin nods once and follows her.

They stare out at the dim stars together, lost for words—or perhaps just lost. Alvin wishes the Moonlight did as much to affect him as it does Leia; in this, experience is worse than naïvete.

It's cooler outside than she anticipated, and she can't suppress something of a shiver. Alvin puts his arm around her after a fierce internal debate, mostly to show himself that his heart has a point. The weight barely settles on her shoulders before Leia throws it off again with surprising force; Alvin staggers backward, frowning, and his mind growls that _it told him so_.

"How do I know you're not going to… to shoot me in the back again?"

She means it metaphorically, never intending to reopen old wounds long since closed, but Alvin feels like Leia shot _him_ this time. This is the reason he has trust issues, he says to himself, but the words are a halfhearted excuse. He knows no one but himself is responsible for the way he chooses to deal with life.

Alvin straightens up and looks Leia in the eye; her breath catches momentarily at the solemnity of his expression.

"I'll keep trying to earn your forgiveness until the day I die," he says simply. Even if he never meant to shoot her—even if pulling the trigger was accidental—that doesn't excuse his actions. Leia narrows her eyes, thinking of that day two years back; she forgave him long ago, but knows neither of them can never _forget_.

She finds herself standing peacefully before her decision, nudged that way by the Moonlight's gentle urging.

Alvin jumps backwards; Leia is suddenly standing directly before him, hands coyly behind her back, and he's scared for a moment that she's going to take her staff out from nowhere and kick his ass. But as she corners him against the balcony railing, and as he tries desperately to say he's sorry one more futile time, she tugs his head down by the scarf, stands on her tiptoes, and kisses him, swift and light.

"Got me cornered," murmurs Alvin with affection he has no time to disguise as she pulls away, and Leia can practically feel her heart swell with love… and something more intense. This isn't something she's ready for in any sense, but if Alvin's taught her one thing, it's that acting on impulses can be just as valid as acting after careful preparation.

Isn't it ironic that he taught her that so much of life is a gamble when Alvin hates gambling?

"You could have taken my life that day," she begins, blushing, "but now, you took my first kiss instead." Alvin blinks; he doesn't think a beauty like Leia should want for admirers, and feels a little guilty that the first one she gets is more than a decade her senior. "And you can have another first, if you want."

_That _freezes his ordinarily silver tongue. It's almost a full minute before Alvin can find a coherent response; Leia wonders if she's said too much, and wanders back inside, uncertainty swirling around her head along with the drink. Isn't she good enough for him?

"It's the alcohol talking," decides Alvin loudly, stepping inside and sitting at the table again, and Leia's eyes follow his actions apprehensively. "Don't let it rule your heart as well as your head. _That_ only leads to trouble." He half-laughs and takes another swig of Moonlight. "I should know."

"Jude is probably getting it every night," insists Leia, glowering at nothing in particular and sitting down abruptly. "You know, with Milla. If he can do it, so can I. Probably _better_." She doesn't know how to frame the challenge in her thoughts, or if she even wants to frame it. It's probably better in all its half-baked glory anyway.

All she knows is that Alvin stands in her way again—and the problem is, he's both an obstacle _and_ the solution.

"Every night?" he asks lightly, raising his eyebrows. "More exhausting than it sounds. I'm not buying it." He sets his glass down again and looks a disappointed Leia up and down. She's definitely offering what he thinks she's offering, but _she's seventeen and he's twenty-eight and the two don't mix_, no matter what either of them actually wants.

Leia can't look at Alvin anymore. Maybe the solution to this semi-physical feeling inside her is to avoid seeing him, but even just knowing he's there sitting beside her makes her body practically tingle. "If it'll make you happy," she mumbles eventually, "then I'll shut up. I-I'm sorry."

Alvin stares at her. How can she be so _blind_? "It has nothing to do with making me happy," he growls, and the ferocity in his voice startles Leia into glancing up at him again. "I'm trying to protect _you_." He sighs, all anger vanishing. "I wish to Maxwell I'd never thought of introducing you to alc—"

"I don't need protection anymore!" snaps Leia, getting to her feet, but Alvin rises as well. How tall is he, anyway? Almost a foot taller than her, certainly, and a good deal stronger. Getting to her feet loses its impact when compared with _him_.

"Yes, you do," retorts Alvin, crossing his arms and looking down at Leia with infuriating gentleness. "Find yourself a nice guy your age. You can do better than someone like m—"

His sentence is cut off abruptly as Leia reaches up and slaps him with as much strength as she can muster; he's grateful for her Moonlit weakness. He raises a hand to his cheek, startled more than hurt, and Leia glowers at him. "I don't _want_ a nice guy my age," she says with a good deal more fierceness than Alvin thought possible. "You know how well that worked out last time. I want _you_."

Alvin lets out a long breath. How often has he heard those words from her in his mind's ear?

"Fine," he says slowly. "Fine. But I want us to be sober." Like hell is he falling for this one again. He's had far too many run-ins with drunk girls who fell for him at night and rescinded their love by morning. If she still feels like doing him when she hasn't had some Moonlight to soften her up, he might consider it.

That's what his non-Moonlit side says, anyway, and he's doing his level best to listen to it. But damn, is she making it hard for him to think. She fidgets and fusses with the edge of her shirt enough to make Alvin want to take it off for her.

"Don't you trust me?" she finally asks, looking up once more with an almost hurt expression.

"You, yes. Moonlight, no." Alvin takes another forced, disdainful sip.

"_It's not the alcohol_!" insists Leia as convincingly as possible, trying to stop herself from wavering a little in her seat. By no means does she feel sick or tired; everything is remarkably, miraculously clear, and the clearest of all is _she wants Alvin_. "Honestly, how many times do I have to—"

"Then what is it?" he asks, interrupting her indignant defensiveness. "You haven't been throwing yourself at me like this when you're sober." He almost wishes she has, if only so he can stop being chivalrous and just take her. He's getting tired of his own games. How much longer can he last before he gives in, anyway?

"Love," says Leia simply. Isn't it obvious? For someone who claims to have so much experience in the world, she can't help but notice he really doesn't know a lot about love.

Alvin just laughs. He can't tell whether he's laughing at her innocence, or laughing because she's right, but all he can do as her eyes widen is hope she's not offended. "Even if that's true, I take no chances," he says, and drains his third glass, eyeing Leia's (which is still full; she evidently lost her taste for it before he did).

"You can stop playing the gentleman now," insists Leia, and her words are so close to what Alvin told himself that he stops and looks at her a moment, trying to make up his foggy mind. She wonders what that expression is in his eyes—something a little like hunger, it seems, but she can't imagine for what.

"I'm insulted," he says, chuckling and forcing his eyes away from her in a last-ditch effort to keep himself distant. "I don't _play _the gentleman. I _am _a gentleman." At least, he likes to think so. He's actually probably the least gentlemanly man in either world.

"Yeah, and I'm Queen of Rieze Maxia," retorts Leia disbelievingly, and the two burst into laughter. Their mirth lasts until Leia reclines to rest her head in Alvin's lap. Really, it was curiosity more than anything else which made her do it, but she has to admit it's much more comfortable than just the back of a chair.

He freezes again, halting abruptly in his laughter. The last person to do that was Presa, and a thousand memories from a thousand different encounters flash instantly through his blurry thoughts at the touch of Leia's hair. Presa had been seventeen when they'd met, too, but then, he had been much younger as well—

"What's wrong?" asks Leia, concerned, and reaches up to caress his cheek with almost childlike anxiety. A smile spasms automatically across Alvin's face, widening genuinely as Leia gently returns it, and a great peace fills him suddenly with warmth. Maybe _this _is love, too, however unusual. Maybe Presa would want him to enjoy it.

Her fingers find the back of his neck, and Alvin strokes her hair with his thumb. This time, he can provide what she wants.

Leia closes her eyes as he leans down and kisses her upside-down, and she smiles into it. This isn't as chaste as the first. _This_ one tastes of glowing poranges, and Alvin smells faintly of some probably expensive cologne she can't identify, and the wind blowing through the open door brings with it the scent of night in all its majestic mystery—and it all blends together into the most enticing flavor imaginable.

Alvin likes to think he's sober, or at least, more so than Leia. He knows that's probably not the case after it takes a long, long time for him to convince himself to pull away from their kiss. The Moonlight talks to him too, after all, and whispers of her modest, pure beauty.

The pause that follows is filled with peace… and purpose. Alvin has lost the will to keep his distance, and Leia has not wavered in her own conviction. They both know what happens next.

"I'm giving you one last chance," says Alvin reluctantly, guiding Leia back upright and standing up (uselessly straightening out his scarf, which he knows full well will come off soon). "If you back off, so will I," he continues determinedly, and Leia rises, sashaying towards him in an extremely distracting way. "But… if you keep on doing… what you're doing, then on your own head be—"

Leia kisses him once more, but pulls away teasingly before he can sweep her into a deeper one (he leans down to try and close the gap again before he catches himself).

"Just… shut up and take my clothes off."

Alvin smiles, and is promptly kissed full on the mouth once more, more passionately than ever before. He reflects lazily that she's a quick learner, which he can tell will come in handy soon. He raises his hand and tugs off her tie-scarf, so like his own, and tosses it aside quickly.

That's as far as he gets at first. Leia is bound and determined not to let him be the first one to break away. "I'm going to—" he manages, pulling away reluctantly, only to have the gap closed again. "Need you to—" he continues huskily, after another while or so, with the same not-altogether-undesirable results. "Stop that if you—" Leia kisses him once more, very briefly, and finally lets him talk. "Want me to take you up on that," finishes Alvin, breathing hard, and Leia smirks at him.

Oh, that smirk—one worthy of Alvin himself.

He shakes his head at Leia's antics; she kneels on the nearest bed, facing away from him (she knows he'll come to her), and Alvin easily reaches around her slender frame to undo the remaining buttons on her shirt from behind. As his fingers graze her chest, she shivers pleasantly, though his fingers are more intent with unclothing her than anything else. She leans against his shoulder, smiling at him, and giggles giddily.

"Well, if you think the way I do it is that funny," shrugs Alvin humorously, disloding the light-brunette head from his shoulder, "then you can just take your clothes off yourself." He turns around and crosses his arms, glancing over his shoulder with an irrepressible smile.

She knows he doesn't mean it, but that doesn't stop her from tugging off her own shorts and throwing them aside with undisguised enthusiasm (Alvin's eyes follow them, and he smiles a little in anticipation). She slides her hands around him tentatively, clumsily unbuttoning his shirt in an echo of what he did for her.

Alvin has no problem with helping her find the buttons—especially the lowest ones.

It doesn't take long before his shirt hangs open to her satisfaction; Leia takes his scarf and tugs at it to get him to face her. He pretends to be reluctant, but he knows she can see the excitement taking hold of him too, so he arches over her, shirt gaping open, and quickly removes his scarf.

Leia brushes her hand down his chest to poke at his muscular torso. "Why do you hide all this?" she asks in hushed tones, bringing her eyes reluctantly back up to his (which likewise take a little while to meet hers). She can feel herself flush, but refuses to look away from the affection in his eyes.

"It might be… taken amiss… for a businessman to wander around shirtless," replies Alvin, raising his eyebrows, and—after discarding his loose shirt—turns his eyes back to admiring her petite body, clad only in her undergarments. He isn't about to say this is an unprecedented scenario in his head, but of course it's exponentially better in reality.

"You shouldn't be so shy," responds Leia jokingly. Of all the people she knows, Alvin is probably the _least _shy, given the way he's checking her out unabashedly.

"Oh, you'll see exactly how 'shy' I am," promises Alvin in something like a whisper, and his lips graze her cheek, trailing kisses down her neck and making her gasp: a thrill races through her at the gentle touch of his mouth on her skin. As recently as a few hours ago, Leia never would have imagined this to be in her future.

He slides his hand down her right shoulderblade towards her bra clasp, but halts at the tiniest of knots in her skin, frowning and raising his head again to look Leia in the eye. She can't look at him for much longer than a second or two, though, and closes them quickly.

"Is that where…?" he begins, but is unable to finish his question, knowing the answer already. Is that where he shot her? Of course. Why else would she react like that?

"Jude couldn't erase the scar," she says after an unusually heavy pause. "He… waited too long to heal it." Every nerve in her body is ready and waiting for something she fears will now never happen; she longs to tell him to stop talking, to let it go and _take her_, but the words staunchly refuse to leave her tongue.

"It's all my fault."

The guilt in his voice, so different from his previous flirtation, is overwhelming. Leia opens her eyes resolutely and flicks him lightly in the forehead, wrapping her legs around his hips and bringing them down towards hers. They'd come this far; she wasn't going to stop here.

"What… was that for?" asks Alvin, looking as though he couldn't care less as their pelvises brushed. She probably could have stabbed him a second ago instead of flicking him, and it wouldn't matter anymore.

"I'd never let you do this if I cared about that," says Leia simply.

"_Let_ me?" asks Alvin incredulously, but grins nonetheless as he leans his forehead against hers. Her breaths are quick and hot in expectation of the actions to come; Alvin struggles to keep a level enough head to continue speaking. "You're _begging _for this."

His voice, more a groan than anything else, reveals how much he wants it too. Leia smirks: that nullifies any implication that he's somehow doing her a favor. He's _exactly_ as lustful as she is, if not more so.

_Nice try, Alvin. You and your lies._

"Yeah," smiles Leia, digging her fingernails slightly into his back: he inhales sharply and curves away from the pressure, and she grins at his reaction. "So, if you feel like apologizing… I think I know where you can start."

**((Okay, yeah, I officially love this ship. It's weird that it took writing an almost-M-rated fic for me to figure it out, though.**

**Guys, check out Ryuchu's Alvin/Leia stuff! I was inspired to write this ship by **_**The Most Important Thing**_**, referenced once in this story.))**


End file.
